Hey, so I'm extremely new to hacking, and I feel really dumb for asking this but I don't know where to get the password to get into the basic tests. (If that's part of the test itself, I'll feel like a complete numskull )

Welcome to HTS. The missions are designed for you to take advantage of common exploits to get the passwords. So don't get confused if your account password doesn't work. Here is the help thread for the first one. Let me know if you need any more help.